By Our Defence Correspondent
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Defence Minister Tilak Marapana, and Defence Secretary Austin Fernando awoke on Saturday, June 14, to the news that the Navy had been involved in a major confrontation that may very well have brought the 18-month-old peace process to an abrupt and devastating end, once again plunging the nation back into war.

Considering that the PM had publicly said only a few days earlier that there would be no return to war, the fact that he wasn’t kept informed is inexcusable.

There is also strong evidence to suggest that the Navy actually botched the entire operation, by allowing a new Sea Tiger attack craft that was being towed in by the oil tanker "MT Shoshin," to get away and arrive in Mullaittivu.

No reason has yet been given by the navy top brass for their conduct in not informing the Premier, the Minister, or the Secretary for more than three hours. The MT Shoshin was sighted and intercepted by the Offshore Patrol Vessel SLNS Nandimithra 175 miles east of Mullaittivu at 3 a.m. The ship tried to make a run for it, and was finally sunk at 6:30 p.m. when it had got to 220 miles off Mullaittivu. Only then did the PM and his key defence advisors learn of the incident. In fact, rumours began circulating as to whether some of the navy’s top brass had acted according to their political affiliations, rather than their duty to the government and the country. But this is a matter of conjecture.

However, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga was fully aware of the situation from beginning to end. It is greatly comforting to know that a decisive personality such as the President was monitoring the situation.

The issue here is not that the President was told, as indeed she should be in her capacity as President and Commander-in-Chief, but that the PM and Minister were not told.

In fact, confusion reigned between Navy Headquarters, the Presidential Secretariat, and the Defence Ministry, with the President’s Director General of Media Harim Peiris sending out a media release regarding the battle, before any official word came out of the Defence Ministry or the Peace Secretariat. The Presidential Secretariat’s version said that the ship had been sunk by Navy gunfire. The Navy immediately contradicted this by saying that the ship had blown up during an exchange of gunfire between the two sides. This left room for the possibility that the ship had actually been destroyed by its own crew, as Sea Tiger crews have often done in the past, rather than it having been sunk by navy gunfire.

Neither did the Navy inform the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission’s office in Trincomalee, until after the MT Shoshin was sunk. As a matter of fact, the LTTE Peace Secretariat in Kilinochchi informed the SLMM before the Navy did!

In fact, government and defence circles are also buzzing over the manner in which Navy Headquarters was also kept in the dark regarding this battle.

The battle seems to have been directed by the Navy’s Eastern Area Commander, Rear Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, who was apparently receiving instructions over a mobile phone from the Commander of the Navy, Vice Admiral Daya Sandagiri, all the way from the other side of the world in Hawaii! Vice Admiral Sandagiri, who was on an official 6-day visit to the United States, had instructed that his key officers contact him on his mobile phone if any incident took place. It is fortunate that the MT Shoshin was sighted at 3 a.m, when Vice Admiral Sandagiri had not yet retired to sleep on Friday night! The fact that communications over mobile phones can be listened in on by the LTTE, had apparently not been of much importance.

Up to Thursday, not a single official signal had been sent from the Navy’s Eastern Area to Navy Headquarters, reporting on the battle. All information that Navy Headquarters obtained was by telephone or from other sources.

The Navy is divided into four coastal operational areas North, South, East and West each headed by a Rear Admiral. While each is responsible for the actions and movements of warships and navy personnel within his area, the entire fleet’s movements are directed by the Director General of Naval Operations in Colombo, who is also a Rear Admiral. It is vitally important that the DGNO be kept informed, since it is his office that co-ordinates and informs other naval area commands that may need to send assistance.

It is Navy Headquarters that must also keep the Army and Air Force informed, so that the SLAF can send out fighter jets, reconnaissance aircraft, and attack helicopters, and also be ready to evacuate the wounded. Army camps along the coast must also be alerted in case stragglers from the battle arrive in their areas. It is expected that the area command headquarters and the officers on board the warships on the scene have their hands full, and must be given the full support of the resources of the three armed forces.

The DGNO reports directly to the Commander of the Navy, or in his absence to the Chief of Staff, who is usually appointed to act for the Commander of the Navy. If both the Commander and the Chief of Staff are unavailable, which rarely happens, the DGNO is in command of the navy.

In this incident, the DGNO, Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekera, and Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Mohan Wijewickrema, rushed to Navy Headquarters as soon the headquarters Operations Room informed them. But they were mere bystanders in the battle, with little information being sent to headquarters.

The LTTE high command had been monitoring the arrival of the MT Shoshin, and had been greatly cheered by the fact that the new attack craft had got through to Mullaittivu, although Tiger Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran had been angered over the loss of the MT Shoshin and its cargo, according to sources in Mullaittivu. Details of the new 18-metre attack craft, or what it was carrying on board, are not yet available, but it is clear that there was some important cargo on board, and that the main mission of the MT Shoshin was to deliver the craft, sources said.

The LTTE initially feared that some of the 12-member crew of the MT Shoshin may have survived and been taken prisoner by the Navy, and warned of dire consequences if they were not handed back to the LTTE immediately. The Tiger high command was nervous that survivors might tell the navy what was on board the attack craft. Tamilnet went so far as to say: "The twelve crewmen of the ship had donned life jackets and jumped overboard when SLN gunboats began firing on their vessel and were arrested by the Navy."

But once they were assured that none of the crew had survived, the LTTE ceased threatening the government.

Meanwhile, the armed forces are bracing for a retaliatory attack by the LTTE, which would most likely be against the Navy.